Former Pontefract pie man directs a meaty new TV drama

Mark Lavery

He is the ex-Pontefract pie man turned Bafta winning director aiming to satisfy the nation’s appetite for TV dramas.

Dad-of-two Ian Bevitt directed two episodes of new hard-hitting ITV drama Home Front, including the episode being screened at 9pm tonight. (Oct 11)

The 51-year-old father-of-two’s career has taken a series of dramatic twists and turns since he left the Kings School at Pontefract aged 18.

His first job was delivering pies to shops and working men’s clubs for Pontefract-based Davisons Meat Supplies. He soon landed a job with his local newspaper and later TV news programmes before joining ITV soap Emmerdale as a trainee director in 1999.

Since then he has worked consistently in TV. He has be involved with ITV show Heartbeat and directed 230 episodes of Coronation Street, including many high-profile episodes and winning a prestigious Bafta for his work.

Ian is one of the three directors who helped make new six-part series Home Front, which tells topical and dramatic stories of the wives, girlfriends and a mother of soldiers who are serving in war-torn Afghanistan.

He said: “The drama shows a side of Army life that the public rarely get an insight too.

“We want to show the pressures the families cope with while these guys are battling on the front line. TV news portrays soldiers’ happy home comings and the tragic repatriation of those who are killed in action.

“Home Front shows what happens after the spotlight has been switched off and how women left behind juggle with jobs and family life while dreading the knock on the door.

Ian, who now lives in North Yorkshire with wife Sarah and sons Will, 12, and George, nine, was born in Hemsworth and grew up in Pontefract. His dad Barry was a lorry driver and mum Janet worked at Chequerfield Infants School.

Ian said: “I think growing up in a West Yorkshire working class back ground helps when working on dramas such as Home Front as you can empathise with the struggles of everyday life that people face every day.”